THE CURRENT CINEMA HORSE POWER At the races with ((Seabiscuit." BY DAVID DENBY " S eabiscuit" is a triumph-of-the- equine-spirit movie. The legendary horse of the nineteen-thirties-small, knobby-kneed, and often torpid, with an irregular gait and an uncertain tem- per-is all heart: he wins every race by overtaking the field just before the finish line. Intelligent but perverse, he has to want to win in order to do so, and, when he does, he makes the humans who care about him overcome their own difficulties, too. At least, that's the way Laura Hillenbrand told the story in her vigorously written account from 2001 of the amazing animal that became a na- tional obsession. Allowing for some con- densation and a few invented episodes, the movie "Seabiscuit" follows Hillen- brand's scheme closely enough. Written and directed by Gary Ross ("Pleasant- ville"), the picture is effective and satisfY- ing--both realistic and poetic, and always vivid emotionall Yet there's an element of Oscar-grabbing opportunism and bullying in "Seabiscuit." The movie is shaped as a national epic-not as a good story but as the good story; the story of you and me. Upbeat and redemptive, "Seabiscuit" at times seems no more than a galloping variant of "A Beautiful M . d " d "1":' G " d " Ch In an rorrest ump an ar- iots of Fire" and "Rocky" and the many other half-good, half-embarrassing melo- dramas about losers overcoming adver- sity. When a director exploits our hard- wired responses to pathos, he fails, so to speak, a test of honor. For all his skill and tact, Gary Ross often fails in that wa The movie begins oddl with photo- graphs of early-twentieth-century au- tomobile factories, and a familiar voice narrating. Puzzled, we wait for the gra- tuitous introduction to be over. Eventu- ally, Ross, who has learned a lot about pacing and momentum since the sopo- rific "Pleasantville," gets the story going by separately establishing the lives of the three principal human characters and then weaving them together. He 84 THE NEW YORKER., AUGUST 4,2003 begins with a quick tour through the early career of Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), an Easterner who went West, sewed up the Buick franchise in North- ern California, and became a wealthy man. As Howard, Jeff Bridges has a big, broad smile, a hearty manner, and a gleaming intelligence disguised by the heartiness; his performance is a more . 'I ': ,":' on unintentional comed Yet I was im- pressed with Ross's bold delicacy, the conservative-humanist approach to di- recting that evokes John Ford's strong- and-silent mythmaking manner. And, in Chris Cooper, Ross has an actor with genuine mythic qualities. Cooper turns Tom Smith into one of those unnerv- ing people who say exactly what they want to say and nothing more. He cre- ates interest by his insistent wariness, his mouth slightly open as if to receive the vibrations in the air, his head turning and nodding gently, the way a horse tastes the wind. The final member of the triumvirate is the jockey Johnny (Red) Pollard (Tobey Maguire), a bitter young man abandoned by a prosperous family that .: ... ;' r?:L:.,,: yç.' : < ': ::: . ':-'.:::::>' '. . " 1,\ . ".. . .,. , . . . :v . . ,.I . :":,^,:(.,,'" ? , ..,:'...' · '.::':-..: ; 7::'.". \, ,'\ ,., . .- ,;;.. - . ,ki' \ .,'"\1:) ,...1 .. ',,1> .>....... . "!. ..... . . '-Ì:. .. ., , . ... .-;..:;. ;,,-. ....;. .,", . ' 'r..<-.p; Tobey Maguire gives a tough, strongperformance as the jockey Red Pollard complex and melancholy version of the grinning, upbeat businessman he played fifteen years ago in "Tucker: The Man and His Dream." Bridges never says any- thing remarkable, yet he convinces us that Howard is a wonderful entrepreneur- sportsman--a generous risk-taker with superb judgment. Howard loses a son in an automobile accident (not, as the movie tells it, his only son but one of four), becomes interested in Thorough- breds as a kind of solace, and hires Tom Smith (Chris Cooper), a hardscrabble type who knows everything about horses, to be his trainer. The two have a folk- loric meeting by a campfire, each siz- ing the other up with profound glances and a minimum of small talk. The meet- ing is so exquisitely polite it borders has fallen on hard times. Pollard is a lousy boxer and a so-so jockey; but he has the same streak of ornery independence as Seabiscuit, and Tom Smith, watching the horse bucking at one end of a stable yard and Pollard brawling at the other, has an inmition that the two might suit each other. A calculating young actor, Maguire draws attention to himse]f by slowing down the pace; he holds the camera with his big eyes, his slightly goofY smile, and his scratchy voice con- fidingly lowered to the microphone's intimate ear. Maguire is the Seabiscuit of movie stars-he seems to lack the physical equipment for the job, but don't make the mistake of underestimating him. His Red Pollard is a tough, strong performance. The adolescent softness